John Bluck
Oct. 9, 1998
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
650/604-5026 or 604-9000 jbluck@mail.arc.nasa.gov
RELEASE: 98-52
NASA WEB SITE HIGHLIGHTS WRIGHT FLYER REPLICA SAFETY STUDIES
While NASA engineers study how wind flows around a full-scale
model of the 1903 Wright Flyer to ensure that a safe flying replica will
be built, hundreds of classrooms will get NASA wind tunnel test data about
the model in almost real time via the Internet at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/wright.
Called Wright Flyer Online, the NASA educational web site permits
students to conduct real-time science. In March 1999, the model of the
1903 aircraft, the first to make a successful powered and piloted flight,
is scheduled for tests in the world's largest wind tunnel complex at
NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. They are to be conducted
to ensure that a replica to be built by a non-profit institute can safely
be flown by a pilot on Dec. 17, 2003, the hundredth anniversary of Orville
and Wilbur Wright's first flight.
"The Wright Brothers did not have access to such a modern,
computerized wind tunnel," said Susan Lee, Aero Design Team Online project
manager at Ames. "So, through these wind tunnel tests, engineers will
document the flight characteristics of the first real airplane."
To increase the still-to-be-built replica's reliability, engineers
want to improve the Wright Flyer's design. Project engineers will study
the test model's stability, control and handling at speeds up to 30 mph in
Ames' 40-foot-by-80-foot wind tunnel. Test results will be used to
compile a historically accurate aerodynamic database of the Wright Flyer.
"To prepare students for the wind tunnel tests in March, we already have
many online educational activities including chat sessions with Ames
engineers, pictures of the airplane model and an email question-answer
service," Lee said. "One of our purposes is to give students
opportunities to learn the history of the Wright Brothers who pioneered
early flight; we also want to teach young people how engineers study
airplane flight to improve it."
A teachers' guide for grades five through 12 is available to
educators and the general public on the web site. "There will be a couple
of collaborative projects where classroom students will work with other
classrooms through the Internet. One project, for example, is to improve
the design of a glider," Lee said.
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The objective of the projects is to enrich and expand student
understanding of the scientific and engineering principles behind NASA
work and to encourage classrooms across the globe to communicate. Each
project has clear goals, and students can interact with NASA experts,
project staff and other classrooms.
"Games, puzzles and contests are also a part of the online web
site," said Ames multimedia education specialist Bonnie Samuelson. "The
site is fun, and students learn about aeronautics."
"An important focus of what we are doing in this project is the use of
technology in education," she added. "This focus is one of the primary
educational goals of Vice President Gore."
"President Clinton and I have launched an initiative to make technology a
powerful tool for teaching and learning in our nation's schools," Gore
wrote in a recent memorandum. In the memo, he also noted that students
will be able to follow wind tunnel tests of the Wright Brothers'
full-scale airplane model that are to be conducted at NASA Ames.
The test model was built by a team of volunteers from the Los
Angeles section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
(AIAA), using precise plans from the original airplane provided by the
Smithsonian Institution. The model features a 40-foot-4-inch wingspan
reinforced with piano wire, cotton wing coverings, spruce propellers and a
double rudder. In the wind tunnel, the model will be powered by a NASA
electric motor.
"I can't think of anything as exciting as using modern technology
to test a replica of the biplane that Orville and Wilbur Wright flew for
the first time ever in 1903 at Kitty Hawk," said Pete Zell, Ames' wind
tunnel test manager. "NASA is here as a resource for the public and to
inspire young people. This project seeks to educate and inspire youth;
it's much more than dollars and cents."
Using the resulting wind tunnel test data, the second Wright
Flyer,a replica, will be built by AIAA volunteers and flown on
Dec. 17, 2003, at Kitty Hawk, NC. During the recreation of the Wright
Brothers' first flight, the replica will fly low and travel at only 30
mph, the same speed flown by the Wright Brothers, whose flight only
traveled 120 feet during its 12 seconds in the air.
The online educational project continues through the end of the
1998-99 school year. The project is one in a suite of online offerings
from NASA's Quest Project at URL http://quest.arc.nasa.gov.
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